Technology Advancement Utilizing Suborbital Flight Opportunities "Tech Flights" | 80HQTR21NOA01 21FO F1

Opportunity Information: Apply for 80HQTR21NOA01 21FO F1

NASA Headquarters, through the Space Technology Mission Directorate (STMD), offered the Technology Advancement Utilizing Suborbital Flight Opportunities "Tech Flights" opportunity as an appendix under the broader SpaceTech-REDDI-2021 NASA Research Announcement. The core idea is to help teams quickly mature and demonstrate promising space technologies by flying them on suborbital test flights provided by commercial flight companies. In practical terms, this program is meant to bridge the gap between lab work and real mission readiness by giving technologies a chance to operate in relevant environments, such as short-duration microgravity, high-altitude conditions, vibration and acceleration profiles, and other flight-like stresses that are difficult or expensive to reproduce on the ground. NASA also frames this as a dual-purpose investment: it supports near-term and future NASA mission needs while strengthening the U.S. commercial suborbital spaceflight sector by putting real payloads on industry-provided vehicles.

Eligibility is aimed at U.S.-based, non-NASA lead organizations. U.S. private entities (both for-profit and non-profit), U.S. universities, and Federally Funded Research and Development Centers are eligible to propose, with an explicit exception that NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) cannot be the lead proposer. Other government agencies (for example, FAA or DoD) also cannot serve as the lead proposer, although they may be able to participate in other ways by coordinating with the Flight Opportunities program. NASA employees, JPL staff, personnel from other government agencies, and their contractors are not allowed to serve as the Principal Investigator for this appendix, but they can participate as Co-Investigators or collaborators. The solicitation allows a foreign entity to participate as part of a proposal team, but the lead must be a U.S. organization and no awarded funds may be transferred to the foreign partner. In addition, any foreign participation must comply with U.S. law and may trigger export control requirements under ITAR and/or EAR, which teams would need to manage carefully when sharing technical data, hardware, or software.

NASA planned to make awards using grants and/or cooperative agreements, meaning some projects could involve closer NASA involvement depending on the agreement type and project needs. The opportunity listed an award ceiling of $650,000 and indicated NASA expected roughly 7 to 10 total awards, although the final number would depend on proposal quality and available funding, and NASA reserved the right to make no awards. Program funding and management support come from STMD, and at the time of release NASA anticipated awards beginning around February 2022. The appendix also pointed proposers to cost share requirements contained in the full solicitation, which signals that some portion of project costs may need to be covered by the recipient or partners, depending on the specific terms NASA set for this call.

The application process ran through NASA's NSPIRES system and required electronic submission by an Authorized Organizational Representative, not just by the technical team. A key procedural point was that a preliminary proposal was mandatory and served as a gate: only teams that submitted that preliminary package could be invited to submit a full proposal. For this specific cycle, the mandatory preliminary proposal deadline was July 21, 2021 at 5:00 pm Eastern, and full proposals were due by October 4, 2021. NASA emphasized that organizations should register in NSPIRES early and not wait until the deadline to upload abstracts and required forms, since system access and compliance steps can cause last-minute problems.

For questions, NASA directed technical and programmatic inquiries to the Flight Opportunities Program Executive, Christopher Baker, via HQ-STMD-FO@nasaprs.com, and noted that answers might be shared via email and also compiled into an FAQ on the NSPIRES page for the solicitation, with questioner anonymity preserved. Overall, the opportunity is best understood as a focused technology maturation and demonstration call: it is not just research for its own sake, but work that is ready to be tested in a realistic, flight-based setting to accelerate infusion into NASA missions and to prove viability for commercial use.

• The National Aeronautics and Space Administration, NASA Headquarters in the science and technology and other research and development sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "Technology Advancement Utilizing Suborbital Flight Opportunities "Tech Flights"" and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 43.012.
• This funding opportunity was created on Jul 01, 2021.
• Applicants must submit their applications by Oct 04, 2021. (Agency may still review applications by suitable applicants for the remaining/unused allocated funding in 2026.)
• Each selected applicant is eligible to receive up to $650,000.00 in funding.
• The number of recipients for this funding is limited to 10 candidate(s).
• Eligible applicants include: Others (see text field entitled Additional Information on Eligibility for clarification).

Apply for 80HQTR21NOA01 21FO F1

[Watch] Creating a grant proposal using the step-by-step wizard inside the applicant portal: